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Showing posts from August, 2008

I'm Twittering!

August 29, 2008

Man, this is exciting! I just set up my Twitter account . And I don't even have a Smartphone... Why did I set up an account? Because Jane McConnell proposed to set up an Intranet Watch group tweet and I wanted to be in. Yes, it's her fault. ;-) But I'm happy to have a good reason to start twittering anyway. I'm really curious where this is going to take me...

Guidelines for Companies to Master the Social Media World

August 28, 2008

BusinessWeek ran a nice article titled "Social Media Exposes the Corporate Psychopath" . It has some interesting guidelines that companies "need to master in this new world" called 'social media'. I'll pass you the last two paragraphs: It's important for your company to build a presence in social media. These new communities are irrevocably changing the landscape for marketers and how we communicate. Increasingly we are being charged with delivering ideas that engage and influence the people in these living, breathing, and highly responsive human communities. For advertisers, this presents both a unique challenge and opportunity: We need to integrate our message and presence effectively, profitably, and appropriately into social media communities. The presence you build within social media will be analyzed, scrutinized, and perhaps criticized. However, entering this territory—which is controlled by the digital swarms of consumers and their communi...

Improving Your PeopleFinder

August 26, 2008

Vivek Deshmukh over at Boxes and Arrows ( Joost thanks again for the pointer!) has an interesting post on a People Finder Application he designed. Our company calls this 'who is who'. 'YellowPages' is also a common name for this application. Vivek's post is about how they improved their people search based on user input. His approach is straight-forward, but nonetheless very interesting. For one, I like the approach they take to peoplesearch. Basically they note that many applications have a people finder component to it. It's not only the regular stuff you would find in 'who is who' (name, phonenumber, location, emailaddress, etc.). You need people finder for meetings, visitor registration, etc too. This relates well to 'Identity and Access Management', but extended to non-colleagues, like visitors, too. To improve their people finder they started collecting data from the way users query, specifically the incorrect entries. Based on the data...

Email and Broken Business processes

August 25, 2008

Luis Suarez pointed to an interesting post "Broken business processes contribute to our email overload" . The core of the post is: Socialtext has connected the dots between a few reports to discover that a great deal of our email comes from handling exceptions. Because business processes don't have a system to translate them into practice, we spend more than a quarter of our day emailing about the exceptions to the business process rules. Worse than the volume of email is the amount of mental energy required by each email recipient, ergo worker, to parse each exception and determine what to do with it. E-mail was once intended to increase productivity and has now become so voluminous it is counter productive. Basex determined that business loose $650 billion in productivity due to the unnecessary email interruptions. And, the average number of corporate emails sent and received per person per day expected to reach over 228 by 2010. Email overload due to broken business p...

21 Days of Wiki Adoption

August 22, 2008

Grow Your Wiki is a wonderful website and blog to learn how to use a wiki in your company. They have wonderful video tutorials titled "21 days of Wiki Adoption" . I love the 'science fair' idea. This sounds a lot like an idea on 'wiki sessions' I posted on some time ago . Enjoy!

Reviewing a PhD on Blogging

August 22, 2008

As I posted before here and here , Lilia Efimova is working on a PhD about blogging. Lots of her work can be found on her blog, Mathemagenic - of course... She recently asked if people wanted to review a draft version of her "dissertation chapter focused on analysing my practices of using weblog as an instrument to develop PhD ideas". Well, I went over and reviewed it. And it was definitely worth my time. It's great to read how other blogger try to use blogs for their work. And Lilia is definitely an experienced blogger. She details and analyzes all kinds of aspects of blogging. Like using blogs for personal information management, personal productivity and writing. What I kindof missed here - and this has to do with her focus -, is the social aspect of blogging. For me too, blogging started with me wanting to write in public and see where this goes. I love this description of blogs she gives and it fully relates to my reasons and practice: In sum, a weblog provides me...

Workshop on Enterprise Social Software

August 20, 2008

Great! I'll be participating in an interesting workshop on "Enterprise Social Software" on the 17th of September. It's being organized by the Telematica Instituut in Amsterdam. Go ahead and take a look at the program and the topics we'll be discussing . I'm really looking forward to it!

Changes to HP Blog Printing

August 20, 2008

Jim Lyon also got the email. I'm really disappointed about this. HP is discontinuing their blog printing service... As you may have noticed, I also used it for my blog and it works/worked wonderfully. I really hope someone else will help us bloggers with a new blog printing service. For now, back to using Aardvark ...?

An Interesting Take on Information Security. Or: The Leaked Memo

August 19, 2008

Really interesting article by Scott Berkun titled "The Limits of Leaked Memos" . I like his take! This is basically what I try to tell the corporate information security neurotics... To extend Scott's point a little bit: For me 'context' is also very important. If a memo leaks out, the reader needs 'context' to understand its meaning. Context that most people not working for the company the memo came from, don't have.

Come Work for Océ! Check out our YouTube videos

August 18, 2008

The company I work for, Océ , is looking for new colleagues. For this reason they launched a couple of video interviews with some colleagues of mine giving you insight in what we are about. And what it's like to work for Océ. Pretty nice! More info can be found on our jobs site .

First Surface tabletops at select Sheratons

August 15, 2008

Hmm, got to find a reason to go to Boston ... Anyone have pictures of people using the tabletops in these hotels?

Web 2.0 for All your Communication

August 15, 2008

My wonderful newspaper, the NRC , had a nice article yesterday by Marie-Jose Klave r (who also has a nice blog ) about Web 2.0 in the workplace. It was titled: "Web 2.0 voor al uw communicatie" [in English: Web 2.0 for all your communication]. It has some nice examples of Dutch governmental and non-governmental organizations using web 2.0 principles and tools. (I don't have a link to the article yet, because the article wasn't published online yet. As soon as I do, I'll let you know!)

Collaborative Thinking: Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

August 14, 2008

I needed some time to understand this paper! ‘Collaborative Thinking’ pointed me to it. (Thanks!) The title sounded very interesting and after reading it, understanding most (not all!) of it, I’d like to pass it on to you as recommended reading. The title of this HBS Working Knowledge paper is: “Communication (and coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization” by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman. I’ll give you some highlights. First the main question of their research: “The basic question we explore asks, what is the role of observable (to us) boundaries between individuals in structuring communications inside the firm? We measure three general types of boundaries: organizational boundaries (strategic business unit and function memberships), spatial boundaries (office locations and inter-office distances), and social categories (gender, tenure within the firm).” They go into what literature has said about the managerial task: “In these and other theories of...

The Anthropology of YouTube

August 13, 2008

Ton Zijlstra on his Interpredent Thoughts blog pointed to a very interesting presentation by Michael Welsh on "The Anthropology of YouTube" . The presentation is interesting also to the extent that it explains the facets of 'web 2.0' (again). Welsh also made the amazing video called "The Machine is Us", remember ?!

What is a Blog?

August 12, 2008

What is a Blog? Daily Blog Tips is trying to find a good definition for 'blog' . I like Jeremiah Owyang's definition (I posted about it here ): Blogs are like a keynote speech where the speaker (blogger) is in control of the discussion, but allows questions and comments from the audience. Blogs are journals often authored by one individual, and sometimes teams. In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the marketplace and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having. What I like about it is that it clearly distinguishes forums from blogs. In the diagram given by Daily Blog Tips there basically is no real distinction. One distinction between forums and blogs is that with blogs the speaker is in control.

One Social Media Platform for Inside and Outside the Organization

August 12, 2008

Interesting post titled "Freedom and Social Media within the Enterprise" by Mary Abraham! It mentions McAfee's idea to tag tweets as work- or non-work-related. This idea can easily be applied to other social media as well. I've written on my wish to have one blog platform enabling me to post inside and outside the organization. So you can tag a post saying if it should be visible only to your company or to the world. This should also work for social network tools, wiki's, etc. It should be that easy!

A wiki as CRM tool? Why not?!

August 11, 2008

Wow, interesting post by Jon Husband at the FASTForward Blog . He extensively quotes a NTTimes article about the US State Department using wiki's and blogs. One part triggered me: IN the past, said Stacie R. Hankins, a special assistant at the United States Embassy in Rome, when the ambassador prepared to meet an Italian political figure, the staff would e-mail a memo about the meeting and attach biographies of those who would be attending to be printed out. Today, she said, they still produce the memo, but "now they attach a link to the Diplopedia article" — Diplopedia being a wiki, open to the contributions of all who work in the State Department. The ambassador, Ronald P. Spogli, frequently reads the biographies on his BlackBerry on the way to the meeting. This is a really interesting way to use wiki's. CRM using wiki tooling! And it also triggered me. Companies can also use this to build up information about customers. Furthermore, information about places and con...

Remembering a ToDo

August 08, 2008

As you may know I try to apply the "Getting Things Done" methodology to my work and private life. I have one issue, though, that I keep running in to. "Getting Things Done" says: Write down your task immediately and keep all your tasks together in one list . When at work and at home I do this and it has really helped me become more focussed and productive. However, when I'm not at work, for instance walking in the forest somewhere, these ideas and tasks pop up. I usually don't have pen and paper with me, or my PDA, when I'm walking. Because I can't write them down and get them out of my head, these ideas/tasks will bug me during my walk, because I don't want to forget them. How do you remember those ideas/tasks? I've heard of people that carry pen and paper around with them everywhere for this reason. Some call themselves on their mobile and send themselves a voicemail. But as I said: when I'm walking in the forest I don't want to ta...

More on Conversations, Connections and Context

August 07, 2008

Just a couple of days ago I commented on John Tropea's post on "Conversations, Connections and Context" . He kindly wrote back in an extensive post titled "The context of blogs" . Thanks for the reply, John. The only thing I can say is: "I fully agree!"

Finding Information: thoughts on an IDEA study

August 06, 2008

Michael Douma of IDEA , which stands for the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement, contacted me a couple of days ago. IDEA is "a nonprofit organization working to improve the ways people interact with technology, conducted a study using three complementary surveys to determine how people find information online and how the experience of web site visitors can be improved." He sent me an email with a pointer to his/their new study. It’s titled, "Finding Information. Factors that improve online experiences" . This sounded interesting, so I went on to read the whole study (17 pages) and think about it. The study is based on an extensive survey, which was held under different users (web designers, nonprofit organizations and general public). The introduction says: "The survey questions were designed to answer the following questions: - What makes a web site effective? - What factors contribute to visitors’ enjoyment of a web site? Does this vary by segments...

Feedmysearch a couple weeks later...

August 05, 2008

I was pretty enthusiastic about this new app Feedmysearch and started using it right away. I'm glad I didn't delete my Google Alerts yet. I set up several Feedmysearch feeds on topics as "document management" and "knowledge management". The results are horrible. Google Alerts gives me daily results, which are pretty relevant. Feedmysearch gives me a feed every so often, and the results are really bad (old, limited, etc.). I stopped using Feedmysearch. Back to good old Alerts (and my regular feeds of course). I wonder: Am I the only one experiencing this?

PENSIEVE: IBM Research's Personal Memory Organizer

August 05, 2008

Interesting! Is anybody actually using this? I couldn't find anyone using it on the web. If you are, please share your experiences with us! (Thanks Wolf for the pointer to the video and the Dutch article about this tool!)

Evaluating Context Organiser

August 04, 2008

Some time ago I posted on a tool called Context Organizer . I told you I would evaluate the tool and share my experiences with you. A commenter rightly reminded me to do that. So here goes! Actually I evaluated it a long time ago and eventually stopped doing that and even de-installed the tool. I simply had too much issues with the software and plugins. I'll bet there have been a bunch of updates. My evaluation is about the version they had around November-December 2007. Interestingly, the company selling Context Organizer (and other products) found me via LinkedIn. They said they were looking for people with a background in language technology and knowledge management. That was the first time a company approached me via LinkedIn, so I found that quite exciting. After downloading 'Context Organizer' and playing around with it for some time, I emailed them these comments: "Well, I took a look at Context Organizer this evening! In the past I've looked at auto s...

Motivation to Participate in Social Media?

August 02, 2008

A student at the company I work for is trying to answer the following question: Which factors influence the motivation of users to participate in (online) user generated content applications within formal organizations and how, if possible, can these factors be influenced? I was wondering if you have any ideas on where to start. Are their blogs, books and/or articles that address this topic? Or can we just reuse the work that has been done on this topic with respect to collaboration and communities?

On Conversations, Connections and Context

August 01, 2008

John Tropea of Library Clips wrote an interesting, long blog post on " Conversations, Connections and Context ". Go ahead and read it, it's worth your time, if you ask me! John addresses a topic that connect be stressed enough: the concept of context in IT. The stronger the relationship and commonalities you have with a bunch of people, the more you understand each others writings, the more chance their knowledge comes to be your knowledge. You probably agree with this, don't you. But then most of us carry on with our lives. John takes us back to this statement and makes us take a good look at it. Do we really understand the implications of context for instance when we email? Yes, we understand it when we discuss stuff face-to-face. But what happens when we have a conversation via email? Or when we codify 'knowledge'? W.r.t. codifying John says: But the problem here even is that a codified solution is usually formal (stripped of context) eg. when this happens...

Back to the Future with IBM

August 01, 2008

Not much has changed , eh? (Thanks Boing Boing for the pointer !)